Have writer's block? Hopefully this resource will help librarians identify publishing and presentation opportunities in library & information science, as well as other related fields. I will include calls for papers, presentations, participation, reviewers, and other relevant notices that I find on the web. If you find anything to be posted, please drop me a note. thanks -- Corey Seeman, University of Michigan(cseeman@umich.edu)

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

PSQ's Internet Resources Column is looking for reviewers to contribute to our next issue. The upcoming column will focus on Building the Library's Next Site.

What sites are you using to communicate with your patrons and/or your colleagues, in the library and at a distance? Have you used Drupal or an open source program to create an intranet or OPAC? Let's hear about it!

And, we are interested in learning about any other sites you find useful in your work, so please consider sharing your expertise with your colleagues.

Please submit site suggestions by Wednesday, July 8, 2009, and indicate whether or not you are willing and able to review the site yourself by August 7, 2009. Preference will be given to those sites submitted by the 8th.

Reviewers must have a full command of the Spanish-language and the ability to evaluate the quality of original materials and translations. Interviews will be conducted, in the evenings, over the phone, in Spanish. There is no monetary compensation. Reviewers keep the books they review as their compensation.

Friday, June 26, 2009

CFP: Special issue on Administration, management, and strategic planning of cataloging and metadata departments (Cataloging and Classification Quaterly)

Cataloging & Classification Quarterly will be publishing a special issue on 21st-century challenges for library administrators in the management and strategic planning of operations and personnel in cataloging and metadata departments. The guest editor is looking for articles that articulate new directions and opinions, as well as case studies, related to re-visioning, repurposing, establishing efficiencies, and/or redirecting both workflows and personnel within cataloging and metadata departments. Articles that examine how to justify and/or defend what are commonly known as “behind-the-scenes” or “back-end” library operations and personnel in the current budget crisis are especially timely. The guest editor is looking for a wide range of international participation, so proposals from authors outside of the United States are encouraged. Articles can be of any length, and figures and screen shots are encouraged.

If you are interested in contributing, please send the guest editor your name, a short proposal of the topic, and a tentative title for the article. Deadline for proposals is September 1, 2009. Articles would be due to the guest editor by January 1, 2010. Any questions can be directed to the guest editor. Thank you.

CCQ welcomes the submission of research, theory, and practice papers relevant to the broad field of bibliographic organization.

This journal, published now 8 times a year by Taylor & Francis, LLC, is respected as an international forum that emphasizes research and review articles, description of new programs and technologies relevant to cataloging and classification, and considered speculative articles on improved methods of bibliographic control for the future.

Free Digital (Electronic) Sample...(available immediately)a) go to: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t792303976~db=allb) Go down five lines to this line (it will be in light blue)Subscribe....Sign in...Online SamplePlease note in advance that registration is required for obtainingthe complimentary online sample.

LIBREAS (Library Ideas) is an electronic journal which operates under a free-access model,meaning no costs for authors and readership (http://www.LIBREAS.eu or http://www.libreas.eu/formal/english.htm). This eJournal waslaunched in 2005 by students at Berlin School of Library and Information Science (IBI)which is part of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. It still is housed at the IBI.

Now the editorial board consists of eight unpaid editors (mostly alumni of IBI, somecurrently students). Recently LIBREAS established a branch in St. Paul,Minnesota (USA) to strengthen our focus on North American scholarship.

LIBREAS aims to be the gateway between the "young and wild ones" and the"old hands" in research and practice. It acts as a place for dialogue and idea exchange. Bynow it is an established institution within the field of library and information science. Weparticularly encourage emerging professionals and students to identify with LIBREAS.

Open-mindedness for new ideas and trends throughout the field of library and informationscience is one characteristic of LIBREAS. Accompanied by at least two issuesper year, we publish self-produced audio recordings and podcasts, blogs, travel reportsand photo slide shows on a regular basis. LIBREAS seeks to provide a spacefor development, identify niches and encourage controversial thoughts.

We invite you to submit articles, podcasts or reviews for our upcoming issue. We also encourage you to distribute this CfP to other interested parties.

A key challenge in Library and Information Science is the fundamental change in the content carriers. While traditionally physical media, such as books, served as the content carrier the increasing shift to digital content requires a radical change in perspective.

In the digital environment the content is flexible; hyperlinked, dynamically distributed and automatically indexed. In this environment the sheer amount of content limits the ability of intellectual indexing.

There are three branches of semiotics:

• Syntactics: referring to the relation of signs to each other• Semantics: referring to the relation between signs and the respective things they refer to• Pragmatics: referring to the relation of signs to their impacts on those who use them.

Current technical means of indexing are mostly limited to the syntactic level. The indexing process only requires the use of algorithms and the application of respective relations. Because of the binary structure of digital texts, those means and methods tend to be accurate. This method clearly has its limitations when it comes to the meaning of some texts. Therefore, we propose the application and elaboration of semiotic approaches to address these limitations.

On the semantic level there are some technical approaches within the research of the so-called semantic web (e.g. the development of ontologies). As of now, both the practicality and the outcomes of these technical approaches appear to be rather limited. Intellectual assistance is still necessary to actualize the relations of meaning.

On the pragmatic level there is currently no technical approach. Still, the pragmatic level has attracted an increasing amount of attention and gains relevance as the communication processes are increasingly handled in the digital realm. Currently, different types of content are mixed-up; such that the line between official publication and personal utterances (e.g. blogs, Twitter) is blurred.

The major thesis of the next issue of LIBREAS is as follows:It is imperative that any contemporary discourse in signs and sign-structures includes the whole semiotic framework. A solely intellectual and pragmatic approach inevitably fails because of the sheer amount of material, while a reduction of syntactic and structural aspects leads to the contraction of perspective regarding the actual usage of such environments. The combination of the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic levels is vital for LIS to effectively deal with the complexity of digital and netted content.

We are far from understanding what a combination of the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic levels will look like in a technical application framework. For the next issue of LIBREAS we ask for contributions to address the issue from a conceptual and/or methodological perspective in a broader sense and/or that discuss the given thesis. The goal is to elaborate on the relationships between signs and text regarding the syntactic and semantic values, as well as their relationship with human users. Furthermore, we will try to formulate fields of application and methodological potential for LIS within this context.

The deadline for submissions is July 24th, 2009. Please note our guidelines for authors.

Call for Reviewers, Technical Services QuarterlyTechnical Services Quarterly is looking for reviewers to contribute to the column, Tech Services on the Web. We are always interested in learning which sites are useful for your own work, so please consider sharing your expertise with our readers. Contact Column Editor: Marta Deyrup marta.deyrup@shu.eduSite URL:http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t792306978~db=all

Thursday, June 25, 2009

ALA's Guide to Reference http://www.guidetoreference.org/ is recruiting contributing editors to identify and describe the best reference sources in assigned subject categories. Grounded in a hundred-year history as the standard for reference service, the new online Guide to Reference now offers over 16,000 authoritative print and web reference resources with browse and searchcapabilities and is updated on an ongoing basis.

If you are attending the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago and would like to learn more about the Guide, please join us on:Saturday, July 111:30-3:30 p.m.McCormick Place West, W-476or stop by our exhibit booth #1426.

This year, the LITA Program Planning Committee, in an effort to modernize the workflow for planning programs for ALA Annual, has moved the process entirely online! The following is the form that you can fill out if you are interested in proposing a program via LITA for ALA Annual 2010, June 24-30th in Washington, DC:

Once you submit your program proposal, the Program Planning Committee will be in touch with you by the middle of August, 2009. The soft deadline for submitting proposals to LITA for a program for Annual 2010 is July 31st, 2009.

QuestionsIf you have questions about anything relating to programs at ALA Annual, there is a public discussion board on ALA Connect designed just for that:

You do have to have an ALA Connect login, but you do not have to be an ALA member...you can register as a non-ALA member and still ask questions of the PPC. If you are an ALA member, you can login to Connect using your ALA login information.

If you have any problems that the Connect group doesn't solve (or you have other issues), you can email me directly, Jason Griffey, at griffey@gmail.com or find me on Twitter at @griffey. But please try to use the forum first. :-)

What can you submit

I am well aware of the challenge inherent with planning technology programming a full year in advance of the conference. Feel free to be a general as you need to be in describing your program on first draft...we can always approach you and ask you for details as we move through the process. But you do not have to have every speaker booked, and every topic decided, to put forward a proposal. Have a topic area, a theme, an idea for where you think tech will be? Go with it.Who Can Submit Proposals

There is one more difference in the process this year that everyone should be aware of. In the past, all programs were driven by Committee and Interest Group submissions, with each group effectively submitting one program. While the PPC is happy to get submissions from these groups, it is NOT NECESSARY to be backed by a group in order for LITA PPC to examine and forward your proposal for a program.

If you, as an individual member, have a great idea and want to be considered, please put in a proposal. If you and two friends want to throw your hats in the ring, please do. If you aren't a LITA or ALA member _at all_ and think you have the best idea for a program at ALA Annual in the history of technology, fill out the form!

Library Society of the World, Code4Lib, and other library groups: here's your chance! Please participate and share with us! Let LITA give you a stage for your ideas. If you have an idea worth putting in front of 300 people at the largest gathering of librarians in the world, we are interested in giving you that opportunity.Bring it.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

I need reporters for ALCTS preconferences and programs that will take place during the 2009 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago in July. Reports are typically about 500 words, will be published in the September issue of the ALCTS Newsletter Online (ANO), and include abyline. Last year's reports are available at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alcts/resources/ano/v19/n4/rpts/prog.cfm.

Contact me if you're interested in reporting or would like to suggest someone, and I'll send you a list of preconferences and programs. Reporters don't have to be ALCTS members, but they must be registered for the ALA Conference. Reports are due by August 15 and will run inthe September issue of ANO.

Monday, June 15, 2009

This is a call for previously unpublished papers on Gen-X perspectives on libraries and librarianship, to go into an anthology co-edited by the wonderful Rebecca Tolley-Stokes of ETSU's Sherrod Library, who also edits TLA's journal *Tennessee Libraries*. It looks like they want submissions from all types of libraries and perspectives (academic, public, et cetera),and they've given some suggested topics but appear to be open to others. Publishing and presenting can be make-or-break factors in the job search, as well as great ways to contribute to the life of the profession, and this looks like a really neat opportunity to get in on it. Only a short summary is needed for the proposal; you don't have to write the full paper unless it's accepted.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Calling ALA Annual attendees with an interest in metadata and digital library development! We are searching for bloggers to report on selected sessions on the Networked Resources and Metadata Interest Group's Blog. Planning to attend a session or already reporting on asession? Think about blogging it here too! Help out your colleagues who are unable to travel year and get a little writing experience yourself. If you would like to blog any of the sessions, please contact Kristin Martin at kmarti@uic.edu with your name, e-mail address, and preferredsession. A list of recommended sessions is available at:http://blogs.ala.org/nrmig.php?title=ala_annual_2009_best_bets_for_metadata_l&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1.

Interested in a section not listed that you think would be of interest?Suggest it!

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

The Journal of Web Librarianship is pleased to announce an upcoming special issue, "Library Intranets 2.0." Manuscript proposals are now being accepted!

Web 2.0 tools have dramatically increased opportunities for communication and collaboration in all areas of our online lives. Library literature abounds with accounts of how libraries are successfully using these tools to connect with users, but how are librarians and library staff leveraging 2.0 technologies to improve internal communication? This special peer-reviewed issue of the Journal of Web Librarianship focuses on use of 2.0 tools, technologies, and philosophies for creating organizational synergy via Web 2.0 intranets in all kinds of libraries.

Nina McHale, Assistant Professor and Web Librarian at the University of Colorado Denver, will be guest editing this special issue. She has experience in reference and systems, and prior to coming to Auraria Library, she held academic positions at Howard Community College (Columbia, Maryland) and Georgetown University. Her research interests include Web and Library 2.0, usability testing, user-centered design, and federated searching. She holds a joint MA/MSLS in English and library science from The Catholic University of America.

Query letters and preliminary proposals are welcome if potential authors would like to discuss their ideas with the editors. Please submit queries and manuscripts to guest editor Nina McHale at jwl.special@gmail.com. Please refer to the JWL web site, http://www.lib.jmu.edu/org/jwl for Instructions for Authors.

The Northwest Innovative Users Group is currently accepting proposals for one hour (60 minute) program presentations at the Fifteenth Annual NWIUG Users Group meeting on Thursday, September 10 and Friday, September 11, 2009 at the Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Oregon. This is your chance to share III expertise/issues with your colleagues, and, for those of you from out-of-town, a chance to enjoy both the beautiful Chemeketa Community College campus and Salem's historic sites.

The conference will be structured as it has been in past years - concurrent presentations within each program session.

Your ideas on programs you would like to see presented are also welcome.